Don't Ask, Don't Tell
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: The Team is called to a factory to deal with employees protesting against management after specifically being laid off. Of course it turns violent. AU. Sequel to Domino Theory. All main character centric.
1. The Long Weekend

_A/N: Hey guys. I'm back with the sequel to Domino Theory. Hopefully you've been waiting patiently for it. If you've been impatiently waiting for it, I hope you didn't do too much property damage. A few quick notes about the story. It takes place the Sunday-Monday after DT (which was a Friday). It's written in the shorter story format to again, save my mind. If there was anything you wanted expanded on more (either you didn't understand it, or you'd love to see a oneshot of it) please feel free to review about it or PM me about it. On a less author-notey like statement, congrats to all Americans for the official repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. _

**Disclaimer: If I owned anything, I wouldn't be in debt. **

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Chapter 1

The Long Weekend

His foot hangs over the arm of the leather couch. At least he'll be able to keep his couch. He likes this couch. He doesn't know why Jules hates it so much. It's modern and fits the style of his apartment. The style before his little sister moved in and started leaving tank tops and short shorts all over the place. He told her to keep her shit in her room. Not her room, his spare room. Somehow her inappropriate clothing has bled into his living room.

The couch fit his style before Jules semi-moved in and brought along a few of her essential things. Like a knitted blanket that smothers the back of his couch. It's supposed to be purple and white. The ends are frayed and it's ugly as hell. It's so old that even after washing it, the white parts of it are still gray. She says it's too cold all the time, but somehow her skin still sticks to his leather couch. He tells her to get air conditioning at her place. She says she didn't have it growing up and doesn't need it now and how the hell are they supposed to raise a kid together?

"Sammy, are you still moping?" Natalie stands behind the couch, scrawny arms digging into her hips as she stares at him with the General's stern eyebrows. He inherited the same pair. She shakes her head in disappointment and the blonde ringlets she has done up bob with the motion. "Just go tell her you're sorry already."

"Stay the hell out of it, Natalie." He keeps his arms over his chest and his foot over the arm of the couch. It's sore from playing hockey yesterday. He got a little too rough, broke his stick on the ice and well, the boys won't be asking him to play again anytime soon.

"Jeez." She pulls away from the hall mirror and fixes her bright pink lip gloss. Her thumb runs under her lower lip to clear away any extra liquid and she questions, "You're never going to tell me what this is about, are you?"

"No."

"Can I give you some womanly advice?"

Ew. "No."

"Sammy." She approaches the couch and perches on the arm, the action wrinkles Jules' ancient blanket. Natalie has on a new dress he hasn't seen before, which means that he probably paid for it. It's pink, strapless and has a bow around the middle. He wants to groan. "Just hear me out."

He groans and turns away from her. "I've seen the way you act around her, Sammy. At first, I didn't get it. I thought you were dating Jules because it was convenient. But I think you like that job because of her. If something happened with—"

"Our jobs are fine."

"Oh." Her fingers poke at the holes in the shoddy knit work on the blanket.

"Are you ready yet?" He sighs and stands from the couch to retrieve the keys. He's letting Natalie take his car out on her date tonight, but they have to drive to headquarters first so he can drive Jules' Jeep to her place.

His sister nods with a bright smile on her face. "How do I look?"

"Fine." He answers without even looking at her again. Natalie's been going on dates far before she should have been. Before that she used to get into their mom's closet and makeup bag. The sight of seeing her all dolled up has long lost all its shock value. "Just don't get pregnant."

"Sam." She scoffs angrily.

He doesn't listen as she rambles off her mouth from the front room. He doesn't really care what she's saying. All he knows is that eventually, as in nine months from now, he's going to need his spare room back for his baby. So if she gets knocked up, he's sending her straight back to the General and the gates of Hell.

He finds his gym bag, and the things he shoved in there Friday. He hasn't moved them because they remind him of what happened that day, what Jules did and his emotions begin to boil again. Reaching into the side pocket he pulls out her car keys, but there's something else wedged in the generally empty compartment.

He pulls out a piece of paper, about the size of a postcard but a little less thick. At first he can only see gray and black. Her name is written in computer font at the top of the page along with some random numbers and other things he can't understand. Then it clicks. Then he sees it. A gray blob inside a black hole. His baby. Their baby. And it's real. For the first time, it's really real.

While staring at the picture, the angry diffuses from is body in a single breath. He lets out a choppy laugh because his voice cuts out. Somewhere in that picture there are or are going to be two tiny arms, and two tiny hands with ten tiny fingers. Two legs, two feet, ten toes. A heart. A brain. And he and Jules created it. He has to sit on the edge of his bed because he thinks his legs stop working.

"Sammy," Natalie hollers from the other room. "Can we go? Some of us have plans, remember?"

"Yeah." His voice cracks and he doesn't want to take his eyes off the picture. Carefully he puts it in his back pocket so it doesn't wrinkle. Suddenly nothing else matters now, the ultimatum, the fighting, and the fact that Steve the freaking paramedic was the one who told him he was going to be a father. None of it means a thing. Because he's the one who gets to spend the rest of his life raising a baby with Jules.

Jules. Oh God. He left her alone for the entire weekend after she was in that accident; after she found out she was pregnant. God he's such an asshole. "Nat, let's go."

He drives like a psycho to headquarters, not really running red lights, but definitely going well over the speed limit. Natalie, who had more speeding tickets before leaving high school than most people get in their entire lifetime, tells him to slow down. He chucks his keys at his sister, doesn't tell her not to wreck his car or change the presets on his stereo, and runs to Jules' Jeep. He drives to her apartment without even adjusting the driver's seat.

He parks the Jeep crooked and across what he's sure is two, if not three spots. Then he runs to the front door of the renovated house that now consists of three apartments, the top floor being Jules'. As fate has it, Mrs. Furbish is leaving to walk her Maltese so he catches the front door. He's never really liked her; she always calls him Stan, but today he almost hugs the old bat.

He bangs on Jules' door and there's no answer. Bangs again, loud enough that it's reminiscent of an evasive entry. There's still there's no answer. She must be out on the balcony reading or out for a walk or something since the weather has decided to take a break from the rain.

The keys to her Jeep include a set to her apartment. The key fits fine, but when he starts to open the door, it sticks for a second. He presses a little harder with his shoulder, figuring the door is jammed on that rubber backed mat he's repeatedly told her to move. With a final shove the door springs open all the way.

Walking inside her apartment he realizes that it's not the mat, because she did move it. Instead it turns out that her door chain was pulled across and the force of him barreling into the door has broken it in two.

"Did you just break my lock?" Jules' stands behind him. Her voice muffled because the end of a pink toothbrush is sticking out of her mouth. Her hair is done up in a loose bun and the right side of her face is still badly swollen. She's wearing full length sweatpants and a white cotton tank top. He has to remind himself that it's only 6pm and still Mid-September.

He looks back at the door and sees the gold chain hanging flaccid in two pieces, one connected to the door, one to the wall. "I—"

"Every time you come here Sam, something ends up broken." She retreats back to the washroom probably to lose the toothbrush and spit.

He shuts the door and hopelessly tries to pull the two separated sides of the chain together. He could fix it tomorrow after work. No, what if she stays here by herself? She can't stay here by herself. Even if he fixes it someone can come through the window. He doesn't think he's going to be able to let her out of his sight for the next nine months.

"I'll fix your door tomorrow," he shouts over his shoulder to the bathroom.

"Don't worry about it." She reappears, sans toothbrush. Her right arm hooks round her torso and he wonders if she's doing it on purpose just so he can't see if she's showing. He didn't notice before in the locker room. He was too infuriated to notice.

"No, Jules you need—"

"Sam." She holds up a hand to stop his talking. Her voice isn't angry, but weary, weak even. "I'm really tired. Can we just talk so I can go lie down?"

"Are you okay?" His heart starts to beat a little faster and he immediately crosses the space between them. She rolls her eyes at him and turns to walk away, but he catches her wrist. Makes her stand in place.

"Sam."

"Jules, come on." He pulls her closer still and she doesn't resist whether she doesn't want to or whether she's too tired to. Their foreheads rest against each other. He breathes her in and she's never smelt more like home to him. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." She murmurs into his chest.

His cheek flattens against the top of her head and he kisses it. "Tell me what I can do."

She pulls back and places a cool hand on his cheek. "Go get burritos. Lots of burritos."

* * *

><p>Spike waits patiently at the cozy table in the restaurant. He tries not to tap his fingers against the faux marble edge that's threatening to cut into his dress shirt. It's ten past six. That's not that bad. After all, Natalie is a woman; she's obligated to be late. He did tell her six. He pauses and thinks about the very brief phone conversation he had with her.<p>

He was in his bedroom with a foot pressed against the bottom of door while his mom banged on the other side of it with a wooden spoon telling him the pasta was done. That it was getting cold. That he was being rude for not being at the table. That Jesus said he should respect her. That if he wasn't at the table in two minutes he was going to get it. Natalie just laughed on the other end of the phone and agreed that six would be fine.

Maybe he should call her. Just to remind her, let her know he's waiting. No. No that would be a bad idea. Women hate that, don't they? He wishes he knew how to act socially around them, but having an invisible tether to his mother that only seems to be growing tighter with age isn't doing him any favors.

When he asks his mom what he should do around women she smiles and says, "Oh Mikey, just be yourself." The one time he asked Carmen she laughed him out of the room. He was fifteen, but still damaged his machismo. It may be the reason why he has none.

Natalie's earring still pokes him. He's shifted it from his jeans into his fancy pants. He's going to give it back to her tonight, not that it wasn't a nice memento. But if she's anything like the women he grew up with, having a mismatching pair of earrings must be driving her mad.

"Spike." He glances up and Natalie's grinning brightly at him. She's wearing a pink dress that's two layers of ruffles brought together with a bow around her torso. It accentuates her long legs and the white pumps she's wearing. She's flawless.

"Hey Nat." He stands and greets her. Her thin arms wrap around his neck and she presses her plump lips into his cheek. His nose nuzzles into the space behind her ear. She smells sweet, delicious, and memorable. Her dress is silky soft when he lays a hand on her hip.

His touch lingers a few seconds longer than it should and he's afraid that it's getting awkward, so he releases her. She grins kindly at him and tucks a stray tendril behind her ear. "Oh my God Spike. Your face."

At first he doesn't understand, but then she brushes a finger over his swollen upper lip. His injuries aren't nearly as bad as they were on Friday. He's sure his mom puts something into the lasagnas that help speed the healing process. After over thirty years of eating that stuff, his immune system is impeccable.

"It's nothing." He gently lowers her hand from his face and guides her to the other side of the table. He pulls her chair out for her and notices the perfect curve of her spine when she tucks the tail of her dress beneath her thighs. "You should have seen it on Friday."

Her cheek touches the bare skin on her shoulder as she gazes at him through perfectly made up eyes. "I'm glad I didn't."

"Jules was in worse shape than I was." He shuffles back to his seat because though the stitches have taken to his skin and itch more than sting now, when his shin muscles flex a certain way, it still smarts.

"I actually haven't seen her." The waiter arrives and revives tipped over wine glasses with ice water. "Sam and her had some fi—" she pauses taking a small sip and catching herself in her mistake before it goes full circle.

"I know about them, Nat."

"Let's just talk about something else."

He shrugs. Fair enough, he wouldn't like it if she asked him all about Carmen and Gino, though there's not much to know. He's an engineer; she's a manager or CEO or something at a company. All he knows is that she's always on her cell phone and ignoring Gabriel, his nephew. "Hey, were you a dancer?"

Her eyes narrow at the question, but her lips break into a coy smile. "Yeah I did ballet almost until the end of high school. I wanted to do it professionally, but my dad said that hopping around wasn't a job."

"Apparently he's never watched basketball."

She laughs but downcasts her eyes and hunches her shoulders. It's body language that tells him she's ashamed at the revelation. Her fingertip traces the edge of the table where the faux marble meets wood. "Why'd you ask?"

"Just had a hunch is all."

They receive menus and he's so overdosed on Italian food that he wants to order the first thing that's not lasagna or pasta. Then everything that's not Italian food after that. He watches her read the menu, watches her slender fingers tangle in with the silver link necklace she's wearing. He wonders why she's so nervous.

The waiter comes back and they order. The waiter's not really rude, but he's not all that loving either. He snaps the menus away and then disappears into the bowels of the restaurant. Spike remains silent for a few moments and feels strange because Natalie isn't speaking either.

He figures now is as good a time as any to bring up awkward queries. "Nat, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." She nods and folds her arms against the top of the table.

"Sam said you came out to Toronto to find a job, what do you want to do?" He doesn't want to feel like he's pressuring her. He doesn't want her to get a job. He just wants to get to know her a little bit better. Know a little bit more than the fact that she did ballet and was born in August.

"I wanted to get into fashion." Her blue eyes fall to the table top again, in the dim light the silverware reflects in them. "I even found some courses to take. I'm trying to find a part-time job to pay for it." Underneath the table her knees are bouncing like she's had too many cups of coffee and she touches her earlobe nervously. "My parents think that it's a stupid idea."

"Learning is never a stupid idea."

She smiles but there's a twinge in the corner of her mouth, like she's five seconds away from breaking down. Sam never mentioned his family much before, maybe this is the reason why. "It'd just be nice to be able to call them and have their support."

He reaches his hand across the table and holds her thin, shaking fingers in his own. "If you ever need someone to cheer you on. You can call me."

* * *

><p>"Where's Izzy?" Ed uses a single hand to gently cover his six-month-old daughter's eyes. She chortles and slams her chubby little hands together. "Where's Izzy?" he questions again just to hear her sustain the single syllable giggle.<p>

Quickly, he removes his hands and her blue eyes scan the room until they find his. Her eyes brighten and her smile makes her plump cheeks round with complete mirth. She squeals with glee and bounces on her diapered bottom at finding him. He leans across the carpet to pick her up, and she reaches one hand out to touch his cheek. The other hand is shoved almost wrist deep into her mouth. Ed laughs because he doesn't remember Clark doing any of these things. He was a very disinterested baby.

There's clomping footsteps down the front stairs and Ed grins as he adjusts his arm underneath Izzy's bare legs. She's wearing a dress that Wordy and Shelley gave to him through their hand-me-downs. Ed's never noticed before, but their girls were always dressed nice. "There's your brother."

Clark moves lead-footed to the front door and Ed intersects him from the front room. "Hey Buddy. I figured you and I could go practice parking with Izzy now before you mom gets home. What do you say?"

Clark shakes his head, sandy curls flopping about. "No. I have plans."

This is the first Ed's heard of them. Usually Clark doesn't go out on Sundays because of school the next day. He watches his son shove his feet into old sneakers with distended tongues and holey soles. Bouncing Izzy against his chest he questions, "Where you off to?"

"Just out." Clark answers. The door is open and slammed before Ed can even protest. When did this huge chasm open between him and his son? He remembers the geeky kid with the cello who used to phone him up at work and beg him to play hoops. Now it's Ed who has to schedule time with his own son. Ed's been trying all weekend to talk with him, but Clark's still upset about Friday.

About to walk to outside to yell after his son, the front door flings open and Sophie steps inside with her arms full of papers and folders. While trying to adjust the weight in her arms she accidentally drops her keys on the ground. They slide across the hardwood floor and hit his socked foot.

She grunts and places the armful of paper on the table nearest to the door. Then notices him after a few moments of deep breathing and preening. "Hi Sweetie."

"Hey Soph," he greets as he bends over with Izzy and picks up the keys, something she's immediately interested in. Her eyes glue to the metal dangling from his hand, and he sees no harm in letting her play with them for the next few minutes. He jingles them before her and she boldly grabs them with both hands. "How was your day?"

"Well, I had to work with the girls to try and figure out the menu. The goal was to get the whole thing figured out today but all we got done was desserts and appetizers." She continues to organize the papers and then kicks off her shoes with a sigh.

"At least you—"

"Ed." Her voice is tense and she takes two large steps forward pointing at their daughter. "Don't give her my keys. I don't need them lost, or broken."

He looks at Izzy, who is holding the key ring in a plump hand and shaking it. "She's just playing, Soph."

"Yeah and when I can't find my car key tomorrow I'll have to remember that Izzy was just playing." She holds out her hand expectantly.

Ed pries the keys away from his daughter who whimpers a bit. Then he gives them back to his wife. He tries to not notice it. The fact that if a stranger was doing this to his daughter he'd be going berserk, but it's wife. Izzy's own mother. He puts his forefinger in Izzy's tiny hand to replace the keys and she stops making noises. He tries to change the subject. "Since you're tired of food for today, why don't I fire up the barbeque?"

"Oh, that sounds nice." She's pulling out her earrings and maybe the attitude is just because of a long day at work.

"It's just the three of us tonight, Clark went out somewhere."

"He's seeing a movie with a group of friends."

Izzy's poking at his cheek with single finger and laughing at his odd faced responses. "Oh yeah, he tells you."

"Did you ask him, Ed?"

He didn't. In hindsight he just expected Clark to mold to his version of the weekend, but the son he always knew didn't like leaving the house on the weekend. The son he knew has had the same friends since preschool. Since when did Clark start hanging around with a different group of them? They'll have to have a talk later. Not a drastic punishment talk, but a father to son talk so he can figure out what is going on with his son.

"Look, why don't you spend some time with Izzy." He bounces his daughter in his arms and she giggles. She at an age where everything he does amuses her. He's going to have to remember this when she's Clark's age and won't give him the time of day either. "I'll pop out to the grocery store to pick up a few things for supper."

"Ed." Sophie rolls her eyes and walks away from him and their daughter. "I've had a long day. I'm tired. I want to have a shower."

"So?" Now she won't even touch Izzy? He can't remember a time when she did anything for their daughter. Change her diaper, feed her, or even pick out her clothes in the morning,

"So take her to the store with you. It's good for her to be outside."

"Why don't I just wait until you're done in the shower and then go? That way you can relax with her on the couch."

"Then we'd have to wait for supper." Sophie's already halfway up the stairs when she yells back, "Just go Ed."

Maybe today was just a stressful day for her at work. Maybe all she needs is a little alone time and a good home cooked meal. "All right," he sighs and places a kiss on Izzy's cheek. "Let's go get some food for Mommy."

* * *

><p>Wordy sits on his knees in his cool, musty basement. He's spent the summer repairing it from the concrete disaster it was, to a playroom for the girls. Partly because Shelley's getting tired of having her hardwood floors marred by paints and other sticky substances. Partly because he's still able too.<p>

After weeks of fixing walls and faulty wiring he finally managed to get the large room to a painting stage. Shelley wants it done in olive green. He doesn't know what the color olive green will stimulate in three growing girls, but it's not his place to judge. She's the designer and the rest of the house looks so perfect sometimes he thinks he lives in a magazine.

He's spent most of the day taping along the white trim and now has the task of painting the walls. Except he can't. His right arm is stiff and won't move forward, like he slept on it wrong. But that's not the problem. There's a tremble in his right hand. Not a bad one, but bad enough that if he could press the brush to the wall it would dash all over the place. One row of tape isn't going to protect the trim.

The weekend was nice and stress free until yesterday night. After the girls were in bed, he was getting ready while Shelley was reading. She tried to casually mention the prospects of him leaving the SRU and while his responses were relaxed at first, they ended up having a heated argument. Their first in years.

He and Shelley don't fight nearly as often as all the other married couples he knows. It's just one of those relationships where he's known her too long that he picks his battles. Olive green in the basement playroom isn't a battle to him. The insinuation that his wife believes he's becoming a danger to the public is.

He's known Shelley since high school. Remembers her walking around their neighborhood during the torture of her first marriage. The sullen look in her eyes, the light removed from within them. The way he punched a hole in the basement when he found out what was happening to her. Sometimes he thinks of those things when they argue, and that whatever their disagreement is about isn't important. He ends up embracing her and she ends up laughing into his chest. This time thinking of those things didn't even work.

The paint brush clatters back into the tray and he rests on his knees for a moment. His left forearm swipes at his forehead to remove the beading sweat. Shelley left a few minutes ago to take the girls to the park. It's good that they're separated for the time being. It helps them both clear their heads.

But behind him there's a soft murmur. Lilly stands with her hands clasped behind her back. Skinny legs clad in jean capris, skinny arms poking out of a peasant top she got a few weeks ago for back to school shopping. Her boney ankles poke out of running shoes and can't help but grin at her because she's growing up beautifully. "Ladybug, what are you doing here?"

"Mom left without me." There's a sigh of tears in her voice, but she's holding the abandonment very well. She approaches him, chin to her chest and hands fidgeting with the loose material on the front of her shirt. "She said I was taking too long."

He kisses her cheek still wet from tears that she didn't want him to see. "She's not mad at you. Me and your mom had an argument last night. She's mad at that." Even on his knees, he still towers over her. He wraps an arm around her thin waist and pulls her closer to him to hug.

She rests her chin on his shoulder and whispers, "I heard you fight last night."

"You did?"

"Daddy, are you sick?" Her blue eyes stare into his and her eyebrows knit into a position of pain that someone so young shouldn't know. Her lips purse together and he thinks that this is her bracing herself for bad news.

"No Lilly, I'm fine." Now is not the time to tell her. He doesn't know if he'll ever be able to tell her. If he'll be able to sit her and Maggie and Ally down at the kitchen table and tell them that he can't play catch with them anymore, or board games, or dress up, or carry them, or drive them to the doctors, or properly dial 911. He can't stand to think of those three heartbroken faces. Which is why he's doing the therapy, why he's on all the different medications, and why he keeps his routines.

"Then why are you taking so long to paint the wall?" With one arm still wrapped around his neck, she uses her free arm to point to the primed, but untouched wall before them.

He could tell her that he's tired. He could tell her that he's taking his time because he wants to do it right. But instead he tells her something so that this will be a happy memory when she grows up, not the time she first figured out that her dad had Parkinson's. "It's because I can't do it all alone."

She tilts her head in interest. Her brown hair, tied back in a ponytail by Shelley, falls to the side. "You need help?"

"Yeah." He nods and picks up a brush, letting the excess paint flow off of it and holds it up for her to see. "Do you know where I can get some?"

"I'll help." She grips the brush around the handle and takes it from him with the outmost care and then moves to stand before the wall. She glances cautiously back at him. "Do I just paint it?"

He laughs at her precaution. "Yeah Ladybug, just paint it."

She begins in slow, dutiful strokes that turn into arches to cover more area. He directs her every now and again, but she pretty much has the hang of it from the start. After her fifth brush refill, he reaches down and grabs the roller to go over the area again in an even coat.

He tries not to notice that his muscles and hands are steady. That they don't tremble at all. That no part of him aches. He's just happy to be spending time with his daughter, who's giggling and already has paint on her nose. There will always be uneven areas on the wall, but at least they'll know where they came from.

* * *

><p>The bay windows in Fort Worth's airport allows the thick sunbeams to shoot through and splash across the floor, the chairs, the wall and the back of his neck. He has his plane ticket balancing on his knee and he tries not to tap his fingers against the arm of the chair. He's sitting much like he was in Toronto two days ago; except the seat next to him isn't empty.<p>

Dean sits quiet, tentative, pensive, with his long legs angled crooked at the knee. He's bent at the waist and resting his chin on steepled fingers. His sneakered feet tap rapidly against the ground and he bounces his fingers off of his lower lip. It obvious that Greg's son wants to tell him something, it's the reason that he offered to drive him to the airport, offered to wait with him while his flight arrived, but they just can't seem to make that conversation happen.

It's been the theme of the weekend. Greg managed to make it to the ceremony just on time. The only seats available were in the back, but he still took pictures. It's absurd the amount of pictures that he took, but it was his son's graduation after all. After the ceremony, he found Dean, his mother and stepfather. Kate was not impressed to see him to say the least, but before she could accuse anything, Dean explained that Greg was invited.

Saturday resulted in broken communication. It was obvious that Kate didn't want Dean spending time with him, something he can fully understand. But he and his son arranged to have supper anyway. Dean was unusually quiet. Quiet from the boy he'd been reintroduced to a year ago in Toronto. All the questions Greg asked casually went unanswered with a grunt or a shrug. At least he found out that his son could drive. That was one to cross off the list.

Today when the behavior continued, Greg started to get worried. Over the years he's seen teens act like this for various reasons. He's seen them end up out on the ledges of buildings for acting like this. His brain comes up with different situations, the run-of-the-mill depression that comes with graduating and impending adulthood, the confusion of not knowing what to do with life after high school. But then his mind delves deeper. Maybe things are unstable at home. Maybe Dean's moving again. Maybe Dean's relationship with Kate is stressed right now. Maybe Chris, his stepfather, isn't the great guy that he's made out to be. Greg stops himself. He has no proof and is in no place to be making judgments on this family.

There's only one way to figure out what's bothering Dean and he needs to do it now while he's sitting within an arm's reach of his son and not miles away in a different country. What kind of father is he if he can talk to complete strangers about their own darkest personal problems, but not his own son?

"Dean." He removes the plane ticket from his knee and shifts in his seat so he's facing his son. "My plane is going to be getting in soon."

Dean sits up straight, pulling his hands away from his face and replies, "That's okay. I'll wait with you."

"I appreciate that." Greg smiles and lets a few more seconds pass just in case Dean wants to bring up the subject himself. When it's clear that he won't, Greg restarts the conversation picking his words very carefully so that he doesn't scare Dean away. "If there's something you wanted to talk to me about, I'm only going to be here for a few more minutes."

Dean sighs and reaches one of his lanky arms back to scratch behind his neck. He leans forward, but then leans back very quickly and it's obvious that he's either undecided on telling Greg, or doesn't know how to tell Greg. "Umm."

"We don't have to talk if you don't want to." Greg returns to sitting straight in the chair, so his son knows that there's no pressure. Just that he's here for him. Even if he can't always be in Dallas, it's only a plane ride away. He's only a phone call away.

"No, it's just that it's not easy to talk about."

The stewardesses start to crowd around the desk near the passageway to the plane. Greg's going to have to leave soon and the problem, like most of the affairs concerning Dean will likely be unsolved. "Well if you ever want to talk, I'm always just a phone call—"

"I'm gay."

Well, that definitely wasn't one of the 'what if' scenarios. It's surprising, but at the same time, Greg hardly knows anything about his own son. Like his shoe size or his favorite movie. However, after years of working at the SRU, Greg knows how crucial this moment is, not only for Dean, but also for him. His reaction needs to reflect his own opinion, while at the same time not undermining Dean's lifestyle choice.

When he turns back to Dean, his son is hanging his head, staring intently at his shoes. His eyes are closed and his face is slack. He appears lost, ashamed and it's no wonder he's withdrawn from his entire family for the weekend even though they should have been celebrating.

Greg puts a calming hand on his back, feels the fast rise and fall of his chest, feels the heat radiating off of him. "Dean, there's nothing wrong with that."

"You're the first person I've told." His voice is barely above a whisper in the din of the airport.

Greg smiles, obviously touched by the gesture, but he knows there's hidden meaning behind it. "Because I'm leaving?"

"Well, kinda." Dean rests his head on his hands and stares out at the people rushing past them in the airport. "When I was in Toronto, I saw the way that you helped other people. You're not all judgmental."

"Who's going to be judgmental?"

"Chris, he's all religious. And because he won't like it, Mom won't like it."

"Dean, your mom loves you very much. She always has and she always will. She's always done what's best for you. Even if Chris reacts differently, then I'm sure she'll take care of it." Kate and him may have their differences, but she has always done what's in the best interest for Dean. As much as it pains Greg to admit it, he doesn't think any of them would be living the lives that they are had they all remained a family.

One of the stewardesses makes an announcement for the pre-boarding of flight 276 Dallas to Toronto. Dean sits beside him, rocking a bit in the chair and Greg wishes that he didn't have to leave on this note. Wishes that they could've talked for as long as his son wanted.

"Dad, what if they don't accept me?"

He doesn't know what hits him harder, the tortured, terrified expression on his son's face that he can vaguely remember from inside a drunken stupor. Or the fact that his son just called him 'dad' for the first time in over ten years. He places a hand on his son's shaky shoulder and gives him a small reassuring smile. "Then phone me and I'll send you a ticket."

* * *

><p>"I can help you know." She watches Sam from over the edge of her secondhand salvaged couch and scuttles back into the corner already feeling the sleep creeping back into her eyes. That's what her weekend has been an accumulation of: eating vast amounts, like the three burritos she inhaled at supper, sleeping and throwing up. She guesses since the baby's been discovered it's seeking vengeance. She wonders how she can talk it down.<p>

She hears the clatter of dishes into the sink and she knows that they'll be there tomorrow morning when she gets up. For an army brat, Sam has a bad habit of letting things clutter around his apartment. Dishes stay in the sick for days, laundry gathers for weeks. She's not any better, but at least she has a conscience about it. To her surprise the sound of water splashing over the dishes echoes through her apartment. "Jules, for the next nine months you've got to take care of the baby."

"And what, you've got to take care of me?" It's sickly sweet but patronizing and if she wasn't so tired, she'd put a little more bitterness into her voice.

Dishes slam off each other and Sam's obviously gotten her hidden tone. "I mean, I can do stupid things like clean up the dishes when you're tired." Then there's the dull thump of the freezer door opening and she knows what he's doing. It's unnecessary; her face barely hurts anymore because she's so exhausted. It's hard to explain; the waves of fatigue just come from nowhere and drain her completely. But when she lies down at night she can't sleep.

Unlike the exhaustion, the nausea hits her hard in the morning. As soon as she opens her eyes it's like someone kicks her right in the stomach. It's like being shot again. Just the feeling of knowing something is wrong, without the problem being justifiable. Saturday she woke up to this feeling and didn't understand what it was at first, she just knew she needed to get to the bathroom before she threw up in the hallway.

"You have no icepacks." Well she could have told him that. She takes a peek at Sam from between the couch cushions. His head is shoved so far into the freezer that he might as well be cleaning it out. Is that a stupid thing that she can get him to do?

"I don't play hockey, Sam." Her back rests against the thick, red striped couch arm. She bends her legs until she finds a position she's comfortable with, in which she ends up taking up a good two thirds of the couch. "Unless you want me to start?"

"Don't even joke about that." He crosses the short distance from her kitchen to her living room. Like Sam's apartment, her apartment has an open concept. It didn't when she bought the place, but she wanted to take a hammer to a wall, and figured it would be good for entertaining. In hindsight she found out that she didn't entertain all that often. "We need to make a list of everything off limits for the next nine months."

"If I can't do it, I don't think you should be able to do it," she mumbles and snatches a bag of frozen peas that Sam hands her. She thinks they're from the late nineties. She thinks that they were actually in the apartment when she moved in. "And seven months."

"Hmm?" He questions while straightening out the things on her coffee table. Misplaced coasters, his half-empty beer bottle, a pregnancy book that she started to read but got upset with because it was basically just a big list of everything she couldn't do. She wonders if Sam has ever ghostwritten anything.

"I'm nine weeks along. That means we have six months and some odd weeks." He stares at her and she feels awkward so she presses the bag of peas, which has a greater ratio of ice than peas, to her face.

Sam sighs loudly through his nose and takes a seat next to her on the couch. His right hand cups over one of her knees and gently rocks it back and forth while he thinks. There's a raw reassurance in the action. "I guess we'll just have to do everything a little quicker then."

"Well I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow to confirm it." She lets her legs fall into his lap, an action that he doesn't protest. "You can come if you want."

His right hand is on her shin now, his left arm thrown casually over the back of the couch like they're talking about politics or the playoffs. "Of course I'll be there."

"It's going to be hard for you to get out of work though. It's at noon and—"

"Jules," he interrupts her by mildly squeezing her shin muscle. She sits up, glancing into his eyes and he repeats. "I'll be there."

"Good." She relaxes again, but lets the bag of peas slide from the side of her face between the couch cushions as her fingers begin to benignly prod at her stomach. "Be there to help me argue with the doctor, because there's no way I'm nine weeks along."

He reaches forward prying the bag of peas out from the depths of the couch. "Didn't it take you three weeks to actually take the pregnancy test?"

She folds up the hem of her tank top until her belly button shows, then pokes a finger into the flat, soft skin. She's not nine weeks pregnant. That nurse must've been having a rough day and misread the sonogram. "Yeah."

"What are you doing?" He's laughing at her now, his chest thumps against her legs.

"Do I look nine weeks pregnant to you?" God help him if he replies with anything other than 'no'. She's so tired, but she's sure she can still kick him pretty hard.

"Jules, you look—"

His hand falls to her bare stomach and her muscles contract because for the last two minutes he's been holding a bag of peas that's been in the freezer so long it can probably vote. "Sam." She grabs his hand in hers and laughs, "Your hand is freezing."

"Sorry." He tries to retract his hand, but she returns it to her stomach. His hand is large and covers the majority of her exposed stomach. It's cold for a few seconds but then the temperature melts away. Then it's just them, sitting in the silence of her apartment staring at their hands connected on her stomach. He chuckles and shakes his head at her. "This is pretty amazing."

She wants to tell him that there's basically nothing in there right now. That the baby is the size of a lima bean and it's slowly sucking the energy out of her while making her constantly graze like a cow and then vomit like something out of a horror movie. But it is pretty amazing, that after Friday both her and the baby are okay, that for the next nine months she'll grow this thing inside her and then actually be responsible for raising it, and that her and Sam get to do it together.

"Yeah." She smiles and holds his hand a little bit tighter. "It is."

* * *

><p><em>Next Chapter - We still won't be into the police-y action. That will happen in the 3rd chapter. Next chapter will have someone being outed (not in the traditional sense), locker room antics, vomiting and reference to a Canada Day barbeque that will be so epic I will probably end up having to write a oneshot about it.<em>


	2. High School Habits

_A/N: Hey Guys. Thanks for the great reviews and favorites to the first chapter. I'm glad you're all enjoying the story so far. This story is definitely the harder of the two to write. Just ask SYuuri, who literally had to keep me on track haha. Jules' part in this is cut down, but I'm writing a oneshot pertaining to it so that should be out in a few days.  
>I'm still working on the idea that Jules living in a house that's apartments. Because that house is not hers, even in TV land. Plus I wrote Sam's part to this like a months ago before The Cost Of Doing Business aired and we found out she was Canadian Royalty.<br>Finally more than a few people mentioned to me that I was being a little harsh on Ed and perhaps "hatin'" on him. I will reiterate that while I find Ed's character the hardest to write because he is the most well explored character in the show, I'm not hating on him. I do have a plan. Also these stories pertain primarily to the characters personal lives. I'm trying to aid this concept by having the characters act as foils to each other. Bottom line, there is rhyme and reason to it. _

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Chapter 2

High School Habits

His eyes shoot open. There's a light sheen of sweat covering his skin. Jules' apartment may as well be a hothouse. Her apartment runs the whole third floor of a 1930s house restored to modern day glory. Factor in that she refuses to get air conditioning and that they're basically in the attic, the early mornings are impossible to sleep through. And he had the nightmare again.

It's not a nightmare. It's reliving the scene on the rooftop. Where he stands by and watches her get hit with armor piercing bullets. He can't fathom how much it hurt; he's seen the damage it's done. How long did it take for the bruising to go down? For ribs and muscles and tissue to heal? For her to be extubated? He knows the answer to these questions but she still has a toonie-sized mark on either side of her chest.

They don't talk about it. At all. Not even in vague analogies. She won't talk about it. He knows it's his fault. He took the shield, left her vulnerable. But he won't let that happen again. He can't. Toth asked him if he'd violate the priority of life code to save her. Of course he would. If she was in danger during his evaluation he would've ripped those electrodes off, leapt over the table, and been out of that room before Toth could have uttered a fractured breath. He hopes he gets to see Toth again. He hopes Toth asks the question again. Because the answer is a more emphatic yes. A yes with a punch. It's Jules times two, because she and that baby are the most important people in the world to him.

She's still sleeping despite the sauna. Despite her going to bed at nine. He stayed up a little later to catch sports highlights and muse about the future. When he finally made it to bed, all she did was toss and turn. She maybe slept for an hour at a time, and then stayed awake for two. He asked her what was wrong and she grunted about being uncomfortable. She also went to the bathroom at least seven times in just as many hours. He'll never tell her but he thinks it's endearing. It's a physical manifestation of the pregnancy since there really aren't any others yet.

She's lying in his arms, her face pressed against his bare chest and he can feel the even release of her breathes. He removes one of his arms from around her shoulders and consciously places it against her left side. His fingers fit perfectly over her ribs. He remembers the time when he drew back and his hand was covered in blood. Remembers when Sarge had to pull him away from her.

His fingertips must trigger a soft spot because she groans and shifts in his arms. "Sam?"

He withdraws his hand from her side, hoping that she's still in a deep enough sleep that she didn't notice it. "It's okay. Go back to sleep." Glancing around he tries to find her alarm clock but he has no idea where she's moved it to. Did she rearrange her entire bedroom in two days?

"Sam," she repeats with a little more hesitancy in her voice. She begins to struggle against him, her fists are on his chest and she's pushing backwards.

Maybe she's having a nightmare too. He's been with her a few times before when she's had them. He knows they're about the rooftop too, although she never talks about it. Sometimes if he pries too hard she withdraws completely, so he has to let the subject go. "I'm here. What's wrong?"

"Sam. Let go." Her voice is loud now, eyes open and she's awake. She thrusts her hand against his chest, pushing him away. As he recovers from the blow she leaps from the bed. He hears her pad heavily down the hall, then clunk of the toilet seat hitting the back of the tank and then—

"Oh man." He jumps out of bed and follows the short trail she took from the bedroom doorway to the bathroom doorway where she's on her knees in front of the toilet throwing up like there's no tomorrow.

He's only seen her vomit once before. It was the last time he got to pick where they ate supper because Jules got food poisoning with a vengeance. It was the last time they actually went out for dinner. He just remembers her pushing herself up off his couch and locking herself in the bathroom for most of the night. When she finally came out he helped her into bed and tried to apologize, but she was too irritated to hear it.

"It's okay." He tells her because really what are you supposed to say when someone is literally vomiting out their own body weight. He saw how much Jules ate last night. It almost scared him. If he knew this was going to happen, it would have scared him.

He grabs one of her hair ties from the ledge of the sink and pulls her hair back as her shoulders heave. He rubs her back, which is sweating through her tank top and he can see her stomach muscles contracting until they're almost concave.

Finally after what seems like hours she takes several heavy breaths and nods her head. "I think I'm done."

He hands her tissues to wipe her mouth and wants to ask her to wait a few minutes, just in case this is an intermission. He gets a glass of water while she flushes the toilet and when he turns back she's covered in sweat and shaking from head to toe. With a trembling hand she takes the water and with sympathetic eyes she says, "Sorry."

"I'm sorry you have to go through that." He laughs while she sips the water, and then starts to prepare her toothbrush. His mind backtracks to when he arrived at the apartment yesterday and her brushing her teeth. He wonders if she went through all this before he got here.

"Well." She inhales deeply and tucks the longer bangs that he's missed behind her ears. "I think I'm getting used to it."

He hands her the toothbrush and takes the water, but gives her a gesture telling her to remain seated for awhile. How can she get used to that? It was like something out of a horror movie. That was three burritos and the entire kitchen of the Mexican restaurant. "How often has this happened?" He feels bad asking. He should know. He would know if he didn't overreact on Friday.

She pulls the toothbrush to the side of her cheek and answers with a muffled, "Every morning since Saturday." She moves from the toilet and stands beside him to spit into the sink. "At least it goes away right after I do it. But I can't eat for awhile."

"Yeah I wouldn't." He agrees and she chuckles at him while rinsing off her toothbrush and placing it back in the holder. He feels guilty about what she has to go through because of the pregnancy; guilty because there's no way he can help her. His arm slides around her waist and he kisses her temple. "I'm sorry you have to go through this."

"It's not that bad."

"Well, at least you don't have to worry about it happening on shift."

"Right," She kisses his chin and there's a hint of mint. She turns to leave the bathroom apparently fully recovered. "Because it's morning sickness."

"Whoa, Jules." He keeps hold of her arm and pulls her back to stand beside him. "You are telling Sarge that you're pregnant today, right?" She doesn't answer him and he drops her hand. "Are you kidding me? After what happened on Friday?"

"Sam I'll tell him at three months." He stares her down, until she rolls her eyes and explains in a lowered voice. "As much as I don't want to admit it, there's still a chance I could miscarry."

"And you want to add to it by remaining in active duty?"

"Look, Sam, I know you worry about me—"

"You have no idea how much I worry about you Jules." He turns away from her and places a hand on his forehead. "I mean, the worry is constant. It's there every time I breathe. There's no way I can handle you going back into the field pregnant."

She glances down at her stomach, still hidden by a pair of sweatpants and a tank top that's sticking to her body from the level of exertion her vomiting caused. "I just don't want to tell people and then have something go wrong."

He holds the hand that's pressing gently into her stomach. "You don't have to tell him by yourself. We can tell him together. Nothing will go wrong."

"Sam, it's just three more weeks."

"Jules, you tell him today or I will."

* * *

><p>"Mikey." He pieces together his mother's face, his vision still fragmented by sleep. At first he thinks that he slept through his alarm. He has Vietnam flashbacks to high school. His mom waking him up with that calm smile, she's somehow in his room even though he knows he locked his door. He thinks if he squints he can still see the model airplanes spinning lazily and the pinup posters.<p>

He swats her hand off of his cheek and sits up in the bed. "What, Ma?"

"Your father, he isn't doing good. I'm going to take him to the hospital." She's sitting on the edge of his bed and he has further memories of her taking his temperature with a cool hand on his forehead. He knows that one time she let him stay home when he didn't have a fever. Craig Jacobs was going to beat him up after school that day. Somehow she knew. "Mikey, he's coughing a lot."

"Ma, he's always coughing a lot." The hacking cough that's been his rooster for the last year and a half echoes from down the hall. He'd sleep with ear plugs in if he wasn't afraid of sleeping through his alarm.

She stands from the bed; plump, trained hands straighten out her dress. Her eyelids lower until they're dangerous slits. "One of these days, your jokes are going to get you into trouble."

He wants to get out of bed, but the bottom half of him is only wearing boxer shorts. Sure she's his mom, and sure she's seen him at worse, and sure she's the one who washes these boxers every single week but somehow he can't make himself move. "I've got to go to work."

"Of course you do." She turns on a cracked heel hidden by a knitted slipper and walks to his door with a waddled caused from not being able to sit down for the last forty years. "Maybe you'll come by the hospital when you have the time."

"Ma," he calls out, but she's already slammed the door.

It's a great start to the week. Being left with the moral dilemma of whether or not to follow his slightly neurotic mother to the hospital. The doctors will press their thick fingers into the bridges of their noses and tell Mrs. Scarlatti that Mr. Scarlatti was merely just coughing. There goes his whole morning at work. What if another bomb is called in? What if it's a real doozie this time?

Then there's the guilt. The guilt of leaving his mom to take care of his dad. It's the kids who grow up and take care of the parents, isn't it? He and Carmen are doing a bang up job at it. There's the guilt of leaving both his parents and going into work. The guilt of not even thinking of his father in a hospital bed because for the entire day he has to focus on what's before him, whether it's a ticking bomb or a paused computer screen.

He ends up at work. In the elevators because he's over the fear and really he's forgotten to give search for Jules while thinking of his own personal debacle. As much as Toth would beg to differ, it's part of his job to hide his personal issues, so when he walks into the locker room he pretends it's any other day on the calendar. As much as he wants to know about the personal lives of his colleagues, he's not about to sprawl out on the bench and bare his heart like he's in a psychiatrists office again. He doesn't want or need their pity, although it would be nice to be able to bring up the fact that he has a terminal father when Ed and Wordy get into one of their squabbles. Just to remind them what's really worth fighting for.

He pushes through the locker room door and there's Ed and Wordy. They're all ready starting to get changed, but at least they have smiles on their faces. Maybe the fighting will come later in the day. Maybe they'll be paired separately so that the comm. link that sweats up his ear canal doesn't make it numb with remixes of the same argument.

"Spike, looking good," Ed greets as he walks along the other side of the bench. He's still a little stiff legged, but it's nothing that sitting in the truck all day won't help.

"Yeah your face healed really quickly." Wordy adds as he pulls a black t-shirt over his head. Neither of the two men is in full uniform so Spike guesses they're starting out with a workout. That's fine, just no cycle, or elliptical, or treadmill. Just focus on the upper body.

"It's the miracle of home cooked Italian cuisine," He responds and then stands before his locker. Satan's door. With a sigh he rubs at his temple and then let's his bag flop to the ground.

"Hey, how was your date?" Ed questions. He's pulling the laces of his shoes back and raises a suggestive eyebrow.

"Good." Spike's fingers make nimble work of the lock and he tosses it on top of his bag and then begins his daily struggle with the door. He's got to get it down to under five minutes. "It was—" His fingers burrow into the crevice in the door but the metal has fused and expanded over the weekend. It's not budging. "-really nice."

It was really nice. The food was good. The company was better. He left the restaurant with Natalie's hand in his. He walked with her as the streetlights lit up and then when they reached her car, Sam's car, they stopped. That was a bit unnerving. But they kissed, embraced underneath the warm glow and she said she'd call him this week. She makes him nervous. The good kind of nervous.

"So this, Nat." Wordy, donned in his workout apparel, shuts his locker door but stays stationary in the locker room. Maybe waiting for Ed. "Does she have potential?"

"Well—"

"Morning guys," Sam greets as he walks between their dialogue and to his locker with the perfectly opening door. Spike doesn't care, it takes the attention off of him and the messed up web of rejected soap opera storylines that comprises his life. "Workout first?"

"Yeah, and you're cutting it kinda close aren't you Braddock?" Ed questions in a teasing tone. A few years ago when Sam kept missing workouts and shooting practices it turned out that he was with Jules. Spike wonders if he should say something to get the attention off of his teammate.

Sam groans and shakes his head as he digs through his bag to find his workout gear. "It's my sister, Natalie. She borrowed my car yesterday and-"

Spike tears his head away from that conversation because he's sure Wordy and Ed are staring at him while covering their gaping maws with full fists. He rips his locker door open and it thumps off the neighboring compartment making Sam stop halfway through his story.

"Spike, you okay?"

"Yeah." He nods twenty or thirty times like a barnyard hen while trying to simultaneously change into his t-shirt and sweatpants. "I'm good."

"Oh Spike's real good." Ed agrees and Spike knows that his time is ticking down. "He had a date last night."

"Really?" Sam smiles and pulls on his new shirt. "How'd it go?"

"Yeah, Spike how'd it go?"

"All right." Wordy taps Ed on the shoulder and point to the door. "Come on."

Ed does one final eye shift between Spike and Sam, but then agrees. "All right."

As they leave, Wordy gives Spike a small nod. He's going to have to remember to buy Wordy a beer, or a coffee, or something. He slows down changing because it seems that he's made it out of the woods for now. His people hate the woods.

Beside him, Sam closes his locker door and it looks like he'll be out of the room in the next few seconds. But then his phone rings. He glances at the screen, groans and answers. He takes a deep breath in, but before he can talk a puzzled expression seizes his face. He pulls the phone back, looks at the screen again and then looks at Spike with the same type of expression he uses when shooting. Then Sam finally says, "Nat, this is Sam. Your brother. And why the hell are you calling me asking for Spike?"

* * *

><p>"So what was that about?"<p>

Wordy 's steps echo a few feet ahead as they make the trek down the spotless corridor to the workout room. The floors have been newly buffed and Ed images Sam giving Spike chase down this hall, the friction on the floor is already in the negatives. He's always wondered why the SRU was set up with such hospitable conditions as slippery floors and endless staircases.

"What was what about?" Wordy questions, he has the same innocent smile Ed's seen all three of his daughters wear. He knew instantly where they inherited it from. Izzy has her mom's smile, though he hasn't been seeing it much these days.

Ed jogs to catch up, even though there's less than four feet of space separating them, old habits make him bunch his fits and throw his arms up to his chest. He hasn't been able to jog much since Izzy came into his life. "You made us leave just when it was getting good."

"Spike dating Sam's sister is none of our business." They round the corner and find the workout room empty. The SRU has been strangely void of officers or personnel lately. Team Four must be out on call, Team Two is on the shift after Team One, and Team Three has this week off.

"You say 'our'," Ed gestures to the space between them, the space they share. "But what you really mean is 'my'." He points to himself with a grin, taking the situation in jest, because that's what it is, funny. Sam's going to destroy Spike whenever he finds out. There's nothing better than nervous Spike and angry Sam. It's just like being teleported back in time four years.

Wordy doesn't reply, just keeps his grin as he picks a treadmill out of the herd. He starts his gait at a normal pace. Not to slow. It's comforting when the normalcy weaves its wave back into their relationship. It reminds Ed of the countless times over the last twenty years he's come into this room and Wordy's been watching some tear-jerker or children's show just so he had something to talk to his girls about. The Boss forbade anything from the Disney Channel after the first fifteen minutes of a tween show Lilly liked.

"It becomes my problem if there's team conflict concerning it." Ed sits on a bench and starts to fiddle around with the weight amount on a barbell. Someone on Team Four is definitely overzealous.

Wordy releases a guttural laugh that's a hybrid of a cough and a huff. "I'm sure Sam and Spike can sort it out without your mediation."

"Wordy, I'm the second last person who wants to admit it." The first being Greg, which is why they're hurting so bad. If Greg would step up and do something about the wound while it's bleeding, they wouldn't be constantly hemorrhaging week after week. Ed's brought it up more than once, but when they discuss it, everyone gets on the defensive. "But the team dynamics haven't exactly been what they used to be."

Wordy nods his head in agreement, arms pumping as the speed of the machine accelerates. "We're all guilty of it. Things haven't been the same since Toth was called in."

The weights lock into place. "I think things have been off since before that." Maybe when Lew died the landmine sent a shockwave into the future, rippling their lives and how the team reacts around each other. But Ed thinks it was happened before that. Maybe Jules getting shot and being replaced by Donna. They had to learn how to deal with a new person for four months and then one day Donna was gone. The spot was rightfully Jules', but still there was a sense of injustice. Maybe it was Sam showing up one day and Rolie disappearing. Everyone started disappearing after that.

There's no media sound in the workout room because Wordy, who usually insists on being in charge of the radio or TV has forgotten to turn something on. Ed leans back and positions himself underneath the barbell. He lifts the weight and watches the luminous industrial lighting. The SRU is now all green and eco-friendly. The government replaced the lighting system last year and now when no one is using the workout room, or locker rooms, or hallways the lights just turn off. It's dangerous but they're saving the world.

He hears Wordy's sneakers pound against the plastic tread on the machine. Hears the metal clank as he raises the barbell and the edge of it smacks against the hooks hanging off the support rods. It shocks his balance but he regains his grip without much difficulty.

"How's Izzy doing?" Wordy asks in his mid-run pant. The machine is shaking with the pressure of his bounding footsteps.

Ed grins and stops his repetitions. Izzy, his little princess. Today he dressed her in a blue sundress that Sophie's mom bought for her during their last shopping trip. He put a clip in her hair because it's still a little bit short and the blue brought out her eyes. She threw her oatmeal all over that outfit and ended up wearing pajamas to grandma and grandpa's because no one did the laundry that weekend. "Izzy's doing really great. She's crawling everywhere. I'm thinking about sticking a mop on the bottom of her and maybe the house will get clean for once."

"I told you all that baby proofing we did would come in handy."

"Please, I only took you up on the offer because I had to help you do it the last three times."

They both share the same laugh and Wordy adjusts the speed on the treadmill. "How's Sophie doing?"

"Fine." Ed's answer is curt and final. He lies back on the bench that's already grown sticky with his sweat

"I don't think Shel and I have seen her since that Canada Day barbeque at your place." Both men chuckle as they remember that day. Spike spent too much time with the kids, then too much time with the Molsons, and then too much time in the sun. Sam wasn't looking too hot by the end of the afternoon. They all tested him mentally and physically, at first to see if he could safely make it home, when it became clear that he could it became some sort of sport. "She wasn't around much then either."

"Wordy, just let it go." He grunts as he presses the barbell up.

"Ed, it's obviously something. Maybe I can help."

"Fine." He drops the weight into place and sits up again. "Sophie won't touch Izzy. At first it started with little things and now it's feeding, dressing, sometimes even looking at her. She doesn't acknowledge her, Wordy."

Wordy stops his machine and grabs a towel draping over the handles on a neighboring treadmill. He approaches Ed; face clear of emotion, no pity, or concern, or the softness that Ed expected. "I could send Shel by with some cookies or something. Get her to talk to Sophie."

"I don't know if it would do anything." It's a nice gesture but Shelley's not a professional. She's a mother and a wife of an SRU officer but apart from that, her and Sophie barely have anything in common. "I mean—"

"Shel, went through some postpartum after Ally."

"I didn't know that." Wordy and his medical secrets. It's surprising, but then again it's not. Wordy is very overprotective of his family, Ed can understand why he wouldn't share something so personal. If it's anything like what he's experiencing with Sophie, then they're sharing the same basic feeling of failure.

Wordy turns away, it may be out of shame, it may be because he's on the prowl for his next machine. "It's not something I like to talk about."

Ed shakes his head, fingers wringing against the slick metal barbell. "We can talk a guy off a ledge, or get someone to drop a knife, or diffuse a bomb. But we can't deal with our wives or our kids?"

Wordy sighs and claps a hand onto his shoulder. "Family matters are a lot trickery than those things. Sometimes the best way to deal with them is to get some outside help."

* * *

><p>Wordy drops his towel at the end of the machine and moves around back to adjust the level of weights. He shakes his head because someone on Team Four is definitely trying to kill themselves with that they have it set at. "How old is Izzy now?"<p>

"She turned six months on the fourteenth." Ed's perched on the seat of a stationary cycle watching as he fights with the L-shaped pin that holds the weights in place.

Wordy can hardly believe that Ed's daughter is six months old, let alone everything that's happened in that time peroid. Six months ago the team was a team. Six months ago he was hardly taking aspirin, now he takes more medications than he does eat meals. The frightening thing is that six months means that their probationary period is coming to an end and Toth might be back soon. He has vague shameful memories of what transpired in that room last time. Sometimes he swears he can still hear the scratching of the polygraph needle. He doesn't know if he can handle the stress of Toth with the Parkinson's.

Finally the pin slips into place with a metal clink and he stands, stretching out his back. "I can't believe it's been six months already."

"Yeah." Ed's legs pump furiously on the cycle machine. He turns his head and with a slight smile states, "I think it's time for another SRU baby."

Wordy laughs. This morning before work he drove by Ed's house, just like he used to four years ago, and picked him up. They went to Timmy's and got their usual, even brought in a twelve pack of doughnuts for the rest of the team which will likely go to the moochers on Team Two. Neither apologized for the way they've been acting, but they've both come to an acceptance. Ed is Team Leader, and as such he does have decisions to make when regarding the team's safety. Wordy thinks that if his illness ever came to the point where it was debilitating, where he couldn't hold a gun, couldn't pull a trigger, couldn't drive a car, then he knows that for the safety of the team, he would back down. In a few guttural grunts both men got this across to each other.

"Don't look at me like that." He wags a finger in Ed's direction and sits on the battered cushion of the weight machine. "Three girls are enough, as much as Shel and I would like to add another we have other things to focus on."

He will never tell Shelley, but now that it's definitely not an option, he would love to have another child. He misses when his girls were small enough to fit in the crook of his arm. Now that they're growing independent, it makes his sickness all the more omniscient. One day Ally won't need her meat cut up for her, one day Maggie won't need him to reach to the top shelf for a cup, one day Lilly won't need him to go to her school to stomp out a bully. What's he supposed to do then?

"So who do you think will next?" Rhetorics is a game they often play. It's not so much a game as Ed throwing out random theories and him trying to be the voice of reason and in doing so disapproving them. The others call it gossip, but they've been doing it for the last twenty years and it isn't likely that they're going to stop soon. "Spike?"

"Well," the word stresses ad he pushes the butterfly pads together with his forearms. "He is seeing Sam's sister."

Ed chuckles with skepticism, leaning forward on the cycle. "And then Sam and Spike's mom kick his ass. I don't think Braddock is exactly an Italian last name."

"So what about Sam?"

"Hmm." Ed grins and leans back, cycling with no hands. "I could see him having a happy little accident."

Wordy chuckles because neither of them have any right to be judgmental about unplanned pregnancies. Izzy and Ally weren't exactly scheduled babies. More like drive home from work and the wife is standing in the doorway holding an ultrasound or a pregnancy test type of baby. "Of course that would put an end to his Samtastic phase."

"Hey what about—"

"Morning Jules." Wordy shouts as she quickly walks past the workout room entrance.

She takes a few steps backwards until she's standing in the doorway. Instead of a gym bag she's uses a large purse. Wordy always liked this, the solitary beacon of femininity in the pool of testosterone that is the SRU. The brown bag is dragging off her shoulder this morning.

"Hey guys." She grins; her face is still bruised, though the colors have shifted to hues of black and blue. "Ugh, we're doing work out?"

"What's the matter Jules?" Ed starts to purposely pedal harder to goad her. "Party all weekend?"

"Oh yeah, you know me."

"No rest for the weary." Wordy offers and they share a similar smile. He and Jules by no means have comparable personal lives but somehow there has always been an unspoken connection. The pain of her injury, knowing that it's a physical attribute that everyone can see; it's why he doesn't mention it. It's like his illness. Though no one can see it, they all know it's present.

"Yeah, what about the dead?"

Ed laughs and wraps his towel around his neck again like a fashion statement. "That depends on where you're going."

Jules rolls her eyes at him. She adjusts the bag against her shoulder and her fingers play nervously off of each other. "Hey, do you know if Sarge is in yet?"

"I think he's in the briefing room."

"Thanks." She adjusts her bag a final time and as she takes her first step there's a clatter that reverberates down the hallway. "What's going on in your locker room?"

"Well—" Ed begins as his grin grows wide.

"Oh no." She waves her hand through the air to cut his sentence short. Before Ed can win her back she continues down the hallway shouting out, "You guys and your gossip. I swear you cross through the elevator doors and you're back in high school."

"So." Once Jules is a safe distance down the hall Ed leans forward on the bike, his fingers gripping the handles hard while his legs keep pumping. "What about Jules? She's seeing that Steve guy, right?"

Wordy does his final press and reaches forward for his towel. "Ed you gotta give this up."

"I just don't like being the newest dad at the SRU." Ed's legs start to lose their clockwork momentum and the machine beeps that its circuit is almost complete. It must be one hell of a conversation that Sam and Spike are involved in. "I'm too old to be the new dad."

"Do you know who the new dad was before you?" He sighs remembering three consecutive paternity leaves. Three consecutive baby showers held for Shelley. Always wondering whether to invite Jules. Spike always complained that he didn't get to go, always half serious. "Me. For eight years it was me. No one here has kids. Our jobs aren't exactly safe."

The mechanical whirring of the pedals as they slow echoes through the empty room and for the first time Wordy realizes that he forgot to turn on the TV or the radio. "Winnie's a dispatcher, her job's safe. Do you think—"

"It's not what you think." Spike chases after Sam as he briskly marches down the corridor, the remnants of his solder past leaking through.

Sam's entry into the workout room is flawless; it's so flawless it's rudimentary. Wordy and Ed exchange a glance because they know that everything is going to come clean now that the guys have had a chance to talk things out. Spike's entry, is less than perfect, his feet loose resistance on the newly waxed floor and give out underneath him. Both the archway and Sam offer him support.

"Spike, Buddy. Slow it down." Ed laughs sitting sideways on the bike as both men enter the room and pick their machine. "You're all jittery."

Spike points to Sam, almost jumping on the spot that he's so overemotional. It reminds Wordy of when he pranked Spike as a rookie. It took weeks for Spike to actually talk to him again. "He's got me all pegged wrong."

Sam pulls a straight smile and shrugs. "Spike slept with my sister."

Spike's mouth hangs agape. "I didn't sleep with anyone's sister."

"Well Spike." Ed leaves his machine and clamps a hand down on poor Spike's shoulder, locking him in place. "Since me, Wordy, Jules and Sarge don't have sisters, that leaves one guy."

"It's not like that."

Wordy shakes his head, because Jules is right. This place can transform into high school so quickly that he doesn't even see it happen half the time. It's the locker rooms. The locker rooms have this throwback that brings out the menacing mentality in all of them. "Come on guys, lighten up."

"Oh," Ed has Spike in a half hug now. Spike is paler than usual and Sam has his ear buds in and already doing heavy reps with weights that might make the Team Four hulk tremble. "You're saying that if you had a sister, you'd let Spike date her?"

"Yeah." He doesn't miss a beat. He smiles at Ed, Spike and Sam who probably can't hear his words but would definitely benefit from them. "You're all stand up guys, I don't see what's so bad about having one of you in the actual family."

* * *

><p>The back of his neck starts to sweat as he sits solitary in the briefing room. The skies in Toronto have cleared and the early morning September sun is blaring through the windows. It's not the weather that's causing him to sweat, though the temperatures this week have been predicted to be at record highs. It's reading over the reports that benignly waited for him when he got to headquarters a little over an hour ago.<p>

Winnie handed the folder to him with the same cookie cutter smile she wears every day like it's part of her uniform. She was called in early today because Pete went home sick. Greg didn't ask about specifics, gossip around here has a habit of spreading like wildfire. He carried the folder with him to the locker room while he changed into his uniform and then to the briefing room, it was beginning to feel like one of those high school projects where the students have to carry around a hardboiled egg as a surrogate child. Ed said when Clark was given the project; he left the egg in his locker for the week. He wonders if Dean ever had the project.

The folder contains four pieces of paper. Two of the pieces he's familiar with. They're recognizable because he's the author of them. They're the disciplinary reports that he created for Ed and Sam last Friday before he dashed out of the building and to the airport to catch his plane. It's the other two pieces of paper that have his heartbeat ticking like a high strung metronome.

Per protocol Commander Holleran analyzed the reports not only to learn what faults the constables commited on the field, but also to make sure that Greg was being fair in his formal punishment. The thick lines where signatures were required are signed and everything seems in place. Greg scans over Holleran's note that's attached via a paperclip. Basically, it states that even though Team One should know better, Friday was insane and everyone is allowed to slip up now and again, so he's not taking the reprimand any further.

As Greg thinks about the irony of his boss not caring what the team did in the field, but some military psychiatrist who's not even connected to the SRU in any faction does, he flips to the last page, which might as well be a death certificate. It's a statement from Holleran declaring that he's sent copies of the reports to Toth, and that Toth has read the reports and wants to meet with the team again in exactly one month. One month.

So Greg sits at the table staring down the note that means going through literal hell again, thinking that if he glares hard enough, the letters will rearrange themselves and he won't have to tell the team about the review. How is he supposed to tell the team about the impending review? That they'll have to sit in that room again, attached to that machine like prisoners of war when they've done nothing wrong. Hardly anything wrong. When is he supposed to tell them about the review? Today and let them worry about it for an entire month?

"Sarge?" Jules gives a tentative knock on the door to garner his attention, but remains outside of the room in case he's finishing classified paperwork.

"Morning Jules." He greets with a weary smile and tucks the pages back into the folder.

She takes a few steps into the room, the way the light falls over her face shadows the bruises and he can almost forget what happened on Friday. "I was wondering if I could talk to you?"

"Of course." He relaxes in his chair and gestures for her to sit down. He vaguely remembers Sam mentioning to him that Jules would be coming to talk to him. He hopes this isn't concerning their relationship. He knows that it's something they'll have to discuss but he cannot deal with it now.

"Oh, it won't take long." She waves her hands and continues to stand, her large purse bounces off the table and it shakes precariously. "I was just wondering if I could take off for an hour at noon?"

He sighs and rubs a hand over his forehead. "I guess—"

"It's a doctor's appointment, a follow up for—" she points to the bandage over her temple. "I should be able to get in and out pretty quick."

"Yeah." His fingers line together as an empty feeling of remorse grows in his stomach. "I think that'll be fine."

Great she smiles and hikes the purse up on her shoulder. "Just call me if something happens."

Her shoes echo down the hall and then there's the distant thump of a door hitting a wall and hissing closed. There's also a muffled din that he can only guess is the guys in their locker room. Most of the days, it's just like high school. He wonders what they would do if he came in with five hard boiled eggs. How many would be eaten by the end of the day.

The guilt boils within him again, it shifts in his stomach like a private tempest. He feels like he's constantly failing everyone he knows. The team by being unable to guide them out of strenuous and dangerous situations. Instead he seems to direct them right through the warning signs and into the belly of the beast.

He failed his son. He didn't want to leave Dean. Confessing his sexuality to someone, especially an estranged father that he don't even share citizenship with let alone any common interests takes courage. He wishes that his priorities weren't so skewed that he could've stayed in Texas, that he and Dean could've gone out for coffee or barbeque and talked about whatever he wanted to talk about because it's obvious no one is listening to him at his house.

He fears for his son. Not because the lifestyle choice he's made is wrong, or unnatural, or sinful, or sacrilegious. But with all the bullying and negativity concerning homosexuality today he needs a family system as a support structure. Nothing has changed, at least not to Greg, he still loves his son just as he always did and always will. For the person Dean is. His son.

He wants to write him a letter saying everything he didn't get to say in the sticky airport seats, but then Kate might find it and throw around accusations and he doesn't want to accidentally 'out' his own son. He wants to write an email, but discussing these things through online correspondence seems so crass. He wants to send Dean a ticket to come visit him one weekend, but he doesn't want to seem like he's trying to pry apart the family Kate's created for him. Maybe a phone call would be the best bet? Just to check up see how he's handling life as a post-graduate of high school?

There's another knock at the door, heavier, angrier. When he looks up Sam is standing in the doorway jaw set and face clearing itself of a flush. Something went down in the locker room and because the last situation Greg was involved in resulted in a Toth response, he's glad he doesn't know what it is. "Sarge, can we talk?"

"Yeah." He nods but moves away from the table that remains upright only on the prayers of all the SRU officers. By the looks of Sam, he shouldn't be let anywhere near this table. "We should be getting to the workout room."

* * *

><p>The lady across from her keeps giving her the bitch eye. All of the women in this waiting room keep giving her equal amounts of the bitch eye. Maybe it's because they're all further along in their pregnancies and they're fully showing like fat guys at water parks and she's still perfectly skinny. Maybe it's because her face still looks like someone used it as a punching bag. Maybe it's because they all have doting husbands by their sides, holding their hands, patting their plump bellies, and handing them bottles of mineral water and both the seats next to her are empty.<p>

It's not his fault, she knows. She booked the appointment Friday when she was wading knee deep through denial. If a car didn't blow up, she still wouldn't have uttered a word about the pregnancy to Sam. This time was the only slot the doctor had available, because her doctor happens to be one of those jugglers who is a physician and an obstetrician, something she didn't care about after she moved to Toronto years ago and just needed to cross 'find doctor' off her list. She usually gets bumped by mentioning to the receptionist that she's on lunch and that she's a cop. All those ladies and their twitching eyes have to wait and glee warms the inside of her.

Her fingers pull at the side seam of her jeans. Jeans that still hug her curves perfectly, jeans that she's been able to fit into for the last two year, including this morning because she's not nine weeks along. She changed back into her clothes before coming here, no sense in walking around in a bulletproof vest and uniform. Instead she wears a charcoal colored top, it's billowy, and it covers her stomach. All the other woman have tight fitting clothing that looks like it came out of a maternity catalogue from the 80s. She will never look like that.

She has to pee. Does she have to pee? She thinks she has to pee. It might be the nerves. She's not good with doctors. She's not good with medicine. She's not good with the smell and the white and the metal. But the nurse who phoned this morning to confirm her appointment told her that she needed a full bladder in order to do the ultrasound. She doesn't think she has to pee now.

In her peripheral, someone enters the office through the lazy swinging door that squeaks several times after it's been used. They're a grayish blur that falls to the seat beside her. She smells him before she sees him, the sweat from the workout room still lingering on his skin, and a knowing grin graces her face.

"Sorry I'm late." He leans over pressing his lips to her good cheek. It's an action they're usually denied, especially in such a public place. But here in an obstetrician's office it's somehow acceptable. "The guys wouldn't stop interrogating me about where I was going."

She doesn't care how late he is. He showed up. He said he would and he did and she might cry. She definitely has to pee. He's still wearing his cool pants, but has abandoned the uniform top in place of a plain black t-shirt. His hand falls to her stomach, something she's going to have to get used to over the next however many months, just like she got used to his hand on her left side after she got shot. When they got back together, he also rekindled the action of caressing her ribs. He doesn't know she knows, but she does. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Sam."

"Did you talk to Sarge?"

"Actually I'm kinda hungry."

He retracts his hand and shakes his head in disappointment at her, "Jules—"

"He was busy." Her voice is a harsh whisper because the women who were judging her before are now leaning forward trying to get details on their conversation.

"He wasn't busy when I talked to him."

Her hands clamps down on the arm of the chair. "You didn't tell him did you?"

"No, because I thought that you would have enough sense to want to protect our baby."

"Julianna." The plump nurse calls from behind the front desk.

She journeys into the interior of the office trying not to react to all the women who were there before her and still have to wait. Sam follows her and the nurse gives her a cautious look before giving him the once over. She has to be weighed, it's something she's used to at weigh-in with the guys around, it doesn't matter, she's always the lightest anyways.

"119." The nurse marks down the weight on her chart.

"What?" She steps off the scale with a loud clank. "No. Do it again."

The nurse rolls her eyes at what apparently is her childish behavior. But harshly gestures for her to get back on the scale. She climbs back on and watches as the nurse taps the weight over with her pen until it rests over the '19'. "You're 119."

"I've always been 115."

"Well you're not now." The nurse makes some final sketches on the clipboard and leaves the room.

She steps off the scale, resets the weights, and then steps back on. When she hears Sam sigh she rambles, "I'm 115. I'm 125 with equipment. I've weighed that much since high school."

"Jules it's four pounds." Sam laughs at her from where he's seated on the edge of a chair, hands draping over his knees.

"That's easy for you to say, it's not your four pounds." The weights clink into place and the metal mechanism starts to tumble to the side at '19'. She slaps the weights back to their original position and steps off the scale.

"Four pounds isn't that big of a deal. No one's going to notice it."

"I'm not tall, people will notice it."

"It's all going to go to your stomach, you're pregnant."

"I'd better be nine weeks pregnant." She sighs and uses a step stool so that she can sit on the side of the examination table. Her feet dangle off the ground and the soles of her shoes keep getting stuck on the pole running the length of the table. Her fingers poke around at the waist of her pants that are still loose. The legs fit fine, her shirt fits fine.

"Jules." Sam groans and pushes himself up from the chair. He stops before her; he's still taller even when she's aided by the table's added height. "You. Are. Pregnant. Things are going to happen and you're not going to like most of them."

She lets him pull her forward so her arms hang lazily around his neck and her face rests against his chest. He still smells like workouts and locker room antics. "That's why I'm here, you have—"

He pulls back from the embrace and stares at her with squinting eyes and a single raised eyebrow. She tilts her head away from his suspicious expression. "What?"

"Did you get a new bra?"

"What?" She glances down to her chest, to the white skin that greets her. Her top was modestly cut, but is showcasing a little more skin than she remembers it did a few weeks ago. "No."

"Those are new."

"The bra isn't new."

"Not the bra."

He stretches a hand towards her to touch the objects in question. She swats his hand away. "Sam."

"Jules." He replies showing with his hands how big he managed to measure her in that short amount of time. He always was army boy stealth. "There's your four pounds."

* * *

><p><em>Next Chapter - I have no clue. I have point A and Point B but no line. But there's a oneshot that'll be up in a few days. <em>


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